BMW Paint Code: Where to Find It and How to Read It
The exact label to look for on a BMW, how the code is printed, what people mistake it for, and 11 verified BMW colour codes.
NHTSA vPIC has no colour field, so no VIN decoder returns one. The label on the vehicle is the reliable route.
BMW prints the paint code on the vehicle identification label in the driver's-side door jamb or B-pillar on modern cars, and on a narrow placard on a strut tower under the hood on older ones. The code is three characters — three digits like 300 and 475, or a letter plus two like A96 — printed beside BMW's German color name. The 17-character VIN does not contain it.
Where is the paint code on a BMW?
- Driver-side door jamb or B-pillar. On the vehicle identification label on the vertical face of the jamb — the same sticker that carries the VIN, though the paint code is not encoded in the VIN itself. BIMMERtips places the code in the lower right corner of that placard. This is the normal location on modern BMWs; PaintScratch describes it for the make generally as the driver-side door jamb or B-pillar area.
- Strut tower under the hood. On older BMWs, a narrow rectangular placard on a strut tower carries the German color name with the code printed below it. Sources disagree on which side and on when it moved: BIMMERtips says the driver-side strut tower on classic cars, while other guides send E36 owners to the right-hand tower first. No source found here names an exact changeover year, so on anything from roughly the late 1990s through the late 2000s, check both the door jamb and the engine bay.
- Rear of the engine bay, near the firewall. PaintScratch notes that on some models and years the label sits under the hood at the back of the engine compartment near the firewall; other guides add the radiator support and, less often, the trunk near the spare-tire well. Treat these as fallbacks once the door jamb and the strut towers come up empty.
How to read the BMW paint code
Three characters, printed next to BMW's German color name and sometimes preceded by the word "Farbe" or a paint-can symbol. Older colors are three digits (300, 475, 668); colors introduced from roughly the mid-2000s use a letter plus two characters (A96, B39, C1M). A trailing slash and digit is production data, not part of the code — PaintScratch gives 354/7 as a real example, and the paint code there is 354. On the door-jamb placard BIMMERtips puts the code in the lower right corner. The longer upholstery or trim code printed nearby is not the paint code, and neither is the German color name itself.
- Open the driver's door and read the vehicle identification label on the vertical face of the door jamb or B-pillar — the same sticker that carries the VIN. The paint code sits low on the label, toward the right.
- If there is no code there, open the hood and check the strut towers for a narrow rectangular placard with the German color name and the code below it. On some model years the label is at the rear of the engine bay near the firewall or on the radiator support instead.
- Take the three-character code only. Ignore the German color name, the longer upholstery or trim code printed beside it, and anything after a slash — 354/7 is paint code 354.
- Photograph the label straight on in good light rather than transcribing from memory. On a faded or dirty sticker, 0 and O, 8 and B, and 5 and S are easy to swap.
- Verify the code against a BMW color reference for your model year — 475 should come back Black Sapphire Metallic, 416 Carbon Black Metallic. If the name does not match the car in daylight, the vehicle or that panel has been resprayed, and a body shop needs to read the actual paint with a spectrophotometer.
- If the label reads 490, is missing, or has been painted over, give the VIN to a BMW dealer parts desk and ask for the build record. That is the only route from a VIN to a BMW paint code, and it runs through BMW's own production records rather than the 17 characters.
Common BMW paint codes
| Code | BMW colour name | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | Alpine White (Alpinweiss III) | Non-metallic white, in BMW's catalog for decades across most model lines — confirm against your model year. |
| 668 | Jet Black (Schwarz II) | BMW's flat non-metallic black; long-running and easy to confuse with 475, which is the metallic black. |
| 475 | Black Sapphire Metallic | The common BMW metallic black; reads black in shade with a blue cast in sun. |
| 416 | Carbon Black Metallic (Carbonschwarz) | This is the 'carbon black' owners ask about — near-black in shade, deep blue in direct sunlight. |
| 354 | Titanium Silver Metallic | Frequently printed with a slash suffix such as 354/7; the paint code is 354. |
| A52 | Space Grey Metallic | An alphanumeric-era gray; BMW gray names changed across generations, so check it against your model year. |
| A83 | Glacier Silver Metallic | Alphanumeric-era silver, routinely confused with 354 Titanium Silver. |
| A96 | Mineral White Metallic | One of BMW's most common recent whites; it is a metallic, unlike 300 Alpine White. |
| B39 | Mineral Grey Metallic | Gray metallic often mixed up with A52 Space Grey. |
| C1M | Phytonic Blue Metallic | A later-generation blue metallic from the C-series codes. |
| 490 | BMW Individual color program (not a single shade) | Not a color. It means the car was painted to a custom order, so the label alone will not tell you the mix — the dealer build record will. |
This list is not every colour BMW has sold. Always confirm against the label on your own vehicle before ordering paint.
What to know before you order paint
- A 17-character VIN does not encode the paint code. A direct query to NHTSA's free vPIC decoder (DecodeVinValuesExtended) for a 2016 BMW 328i returned 154 fields — make, model, year, plant, engine, restraints — and not one of them is a color or paint field. Any site advertising 'BMW paint code by VIN' is either querying a manufacturer build record behind the scenes or guessing from the model.
- YouCanic states the point plainly for this make: a BMW's paint code may sit on the same sticker as the VIN, but the paint code is never part of the VIN itself. PaintScratch and ChipFixx likewise send owners to the physical label rather than to a VIN decoder.
- Sources disagree on when BMW moved the label. PaintScratch describes the driver-side door jamb or B-pillar area as the location, with under-hood placement on 'some models and years'; BIMMERtips splits it as strut tower on classic cars and door jamb on modern ones without naming a changeover year. On a car from the transition era, check both.
- Code 490 is a placeholder, not a shade. BIMMERtips labels it the Individual color program and paintref lists it as a custom order from BMW's Individual catalog, which can include colors no longer offered on production cars.
- Code-to-name confirmation used here came from BIMMERtips's OEM code list and the bimmerarchive.org color archive, cross-checked against supplier catalogs (ChipFixx, PaintScratch). Our own site does not return a paint code from a VIN and does not claim to.
BMW and refinish sources
Open the underlying public source and verify that its scope matches the question you are asking.
BMW paint code questions
Can I get my BMW's paint code from the VIN?
No — a 17-character VIN does not encode the paint code. A direct query to NHTSA's free vPIC decoder for a 2016 BMW 328i returned 154 fields, and none of them is color or paint. Sites advertising 'paint code by VIN' are either pulling a BMW build record behind the scenes or guessing from the model. Read the physical label on the car instead.
Where exactly is the paint code on my BMW?
On the vehicle identification label in the driver's-side door jamb or B-pillar on modern BMWs. Open the driver's door and look at the vertical face of the jamb, on the same sticker that carries the VIN; the code sits low on the label. On older BMWs, look instead for a narrow placard on a strut tower under the hood, with the German color name and the code below it.
What is the BMW Carbon Black paint code?
416 — BMW's Carbonschwarz, sold in English as Carbon Black Metallic. It looks black in shade and deep blue in direct sun, which is why owners second-guess it. Do not confuse it with 475 Black Sapphire Metallic or with 668 Schwarz II, the flat non-metallic black. Confirm 416 on your own door-jamb or engine-bay label before ordering paint.
Can I look up BMW paint codes online?
Yes, but only in one direction: you can look up what a code means, not what code your car has. Free references such as bimmerarchive.org and BIMMERtips list BMW codes against BMW's own German and English color names, so you can confirm that 475 is Black Sapphire Metallic. Going the other way — car to code — needs the label on the vehicle or a dealer build record.
Is a BMW paint code three digits, or does it have letters?
Both formats are in use, and either way the code is three characters. Older BMW colors are three digits: 300, 475, 668. Colors introduced from roughly the mid-2000s use a letter plus two characters: A96, B39, C1M. If your label shows something like 354/7, the paint code is 354 — the digit after the slash is production data, not part of the color.
My BMW label says 490. What color is that?
490 is not a color. It is BMW's Individual color program code, meaning the car was painted to a custom order rather than a catalog shade, and it can cover almost anything including colors no longer offered on production vehicles. The label alone will not tell you the mix. Take the VIN to a BMW dealer parts desk and ask for the build record.
Does BMW print more than one code for two-tone, pearl or matte finishes?
No — BMW normally prints one code covering the whole exterior finish. Metallic, pearl and Frozen matte are properties of that single code rather than a separate base code and effect code, which is why BIMMERtips's catalog tags each code with its own finish type. A pearl or matte code still needs the matching clear and process at the shop, though: a code is an identifier, not a spray recipe.
The code on the label doesn't match my car's color. What now?
Assume a respray or a replaced panel. The label records what left the factory, not what is on the car today. Cross-check the code against a BMW reference — 475 should come back Black Sapphire Metallic — and compare that name to the paint in daylight. If they disagree, have a body shop read the panel with a spectrophotometer and mix to that reading.